Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Kitchen Nightmares - Old Neighborhood Restaurant - CLOSED

Episode Recap

Chef Gordon Ramsay visits the Old Neighborhood Restaurant in Arvada, Colorado, as he approaches he spots a strange sight, a mannequin wearing a baseball cap, leopard print dress and leather gloves! Gordon meets with owner Randy who tells him that her name is Fiona and the gloves are because someone stole her hands, his wife Alexa changes her outfits regularly. Gordon looks around the restaurant and finds the decor to not only be dated but the place is cluttered. He sits down with the owners to discuss the problems in the restaurant, they conflict each other when asked how often they change the menu and settle with once a year, another lie. The menu they give to customers looks much older than a year.

Gordon sits down to order lunch but decides to take a closer look around the restaurant. The chairs appear to all be on wheels, presumably to help with cleaning the carpet. The menu is huge and in no logical order. Gordon orders the New Orleans shrimp, salmon special and scallops. The shrimp arrives and Gordon is confused by the light colour of the dish, the waitress explains that there is cream in the dish. Gordon samples the shrimp but quickly spits it out. The salmon is no better with the same creamy sauce, Gordon is once again unimpressed. Mid meal Gordon takes a walk around the restaurant to inspect the restaurant and finds that the wallpaper is coming off the walls. Gordon's scallops arrive and he questions why they are called Yucatan scallops and Randy explains that the sauce has chipotle in it. After his disappointing meal Gordon goes into the kitchen to speak to the staff and Alexa admits she doesn't taste the food because she has made the dishes so many times she knows what they taste like.

Gordon returns for the evening service and sits on the dirty couch in the front of the restaurant and discovers just how filthy it is when he finds food waste and more under the cushions. He then decides to inspect under other cushions and finds an old pair of shoes! The kitchen is no better and for some unknown reason there are meat thermometers in a hole in the wall. The walk-in is probably one of the worst ever, everything seems to be cross contaminated. The chocolate dessert is on top of raw meat, the meat juices have got everywhere. There is the usual mould and old food but also a dead mouse. Gordon has seen enough and orders the restaurant to be closed and the service to end. Once the customers have left, Gordon talks to the owners and confesses he doesn't know what to do. Alexa begs him to stay, he agrees that he will stay but only if they clean the kitchen. They spend the entire night cleaning the kitchen and throw away all the bad food, they appear to realise that they aren't that good at running the restaurant. Gordon returns the next morning and is pleased with the clean up of the restaurant, however he thinks it could go further. He orders the staff to throw away all the garbage from the restaurant and also to throw away Fiona.

Gordon reveals a new interior, the furniture and table settings have been replaced with a new fresh look. The menu has also had a revamp with nearly 100 items being cut down to around 20. The relaunch evening is a success despite a few hiccups. The customers love the new food and decor and Alexa and Randy are happy too.

What Happened Next?

Reviews were mostly good after Gordon's makeover and the filming of the episode. The building was put up for sale and sold, they closed and sold the business as of May 1st, posting on Facebook.

29 comments:

This episode was quite revolting. You had junk from an attic filling the rafters, upholstery that had not been cleaned in years, torn wallpaper, and couches that had last been cleaned when Bill Clinton was president. Worse was the food storage which only comes in to second as the worst shown (first place to Dillons). Totally unsanitary and scary to the say the least. The cook (wife of the owner) never tastes her food and the husband is just out to lunch and responsible for how run down the front of the house is. And the revolting creamed sauces! Who ever heard of a creamed bbq sauce?

At least Gordon got them on track by getting them to focus on producing good fresh food and a kitchen they could cook in. But I have my doubts. Not with the wife, she has learned her lesson. The husband is the problem. He came across as indifferent, lazy, and too comfortable in how bad the place had become. He is the Achilles heel and could by poor management destroy the restaurant by not keeping it clean, updating the décor etc.

I'm glad I've turned veggie after seeing the contents of those fridges! How many years has the show been going now? You'd think people would know to do a bit of cleaning before he arrives! Imagine if you'd already eaten in a place like that - would you eat there again knowing that they could have poisoned you, even if a place does have a new start? LOL Love it when he finds the shoes! Expect a lot of bleeped out effing and jeffing from you know who in this one.

Ignore the morons in this thread. It is great you are vegetarian. I know you did not intend to focus upon it and just made the sentence in passing, but these brain dead morons fixated upon it like a ravaged pack of losers, and so here we are. They are either below eighteen years of age or uneducated filth subsisting on soda and fast foods. Anyway, decent comment (and yes, we both know you did not mean cross contamination cannot occur once vegetarian as these morons assumed. Though worse contamination risk occurs just by ingesting animal flesh).

Your right about that! Dillons is still number one on the KN list of most disgusting kitchens (both UK and US versions). This place is probably 2 or 3 just above Fiesta Sunrise. Then again I have not seen all the U.S. episodes so others are probably on the list as well. But Dillions, now closed, will be long remembered for how unsanitary it was.

Yeah, Seascape was pretty bad. But the reason why it got that way is that the grown son who was running it with his mother after the father died had something wrong with him. I am not quite sure if it was Asperger's syndrome or full on Autism, but it was clear that he had a difficult time dealing with any kind of stress or confrontation and his mother excelled at confrontation. I believe that they were lucky enough to sell it and get out from under the financial rock before complete destruction.

Fiesta Sunrise was definitely number 2 behind this one! Refried beans dished out of a garbage bin, flies crawling all over the "clean" plates, chicken that was supposedly cooked "yesterday" ( which more than likely means 'cooked 5 months ago'). However Dillon's should have just been torched for community health reasons. Old Neighborhood takes 3rd place for most revolting after Fiesta Sunrise.

Who cares what they look like?!?! They have absolutely NO BUSINESS running a restaurant. I'm surprised nobody got killed by food poisoning from that place. I hope for the locals sake, that they sold the shop. I wouldn't eat there unless I was attempting suicide!!!

Seems to me the majority of these shows were about businesses already beyond recovery due to their debt burden... so they get the TV channel in, enjoy $100k of free value gain in refurbishment ...then use that to flog it and cut their losses.

It seems like the ulterior motive for getting on KN is to get a free remodel and a short term boost in business just to inflate the apparent value of the business so that they can lure in a buyer that will give them more money for the sale.

It seems like the ulterior motive for getting on KN is to get a free remodel and a short term boost in business just to inflate the apparent value of the business so that they can lure in a buyer that will give them more money for the sale.